


AZ-5 Button, or Scram(bble) Button, or How to Score 69 points

by yankeetooter



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Competition, Flirting, M/M, Scrabble, Valoris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:55:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yankeetooter/pseuds/yankeetooter
Summary: Boris and Valery, trapped alone temporarily, find ways to prevent a meltdown.
Relationships: Valery Legasov/Boris Shcherbina
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	AZ-5 Button, or Scram(bble) Button, or How to Score 69 points

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know the title is weird, but I couldn't decide what to use. 
> 
> Thanks to all my Tumblr friends who helped me with information about the SCRAM button, even if I couldn't make it work right. Thanks to one in particular (you know who you are) who helped with the last part of the title. And thanks to this same person who planted the seed that grew into this story, and forgiving me the idea of how to end it. I wish you were on here, stellan-pip, so I could thank you properly and gift this work to you! May all your Scrabble games go well in the future! And if I find out you are on here, I vow to come back and edit so you can get the credit you deserve! You are a true friend!
> 
> Oh, because Boris and Valery had to take cover in a random hotel during the storm, there are no KGB "ears" listening.
> 
> For the record, I have no idea if Scrabble existed in the USSR, but in my story it does.

Valery stormed about the hotel room, furious at the conditions that had forced Boris and him into inactivity. The severe weather outside (which so perfectly matched Valery's mood) had come out of nowhere, making everyone retreat to the nearest shelter. The storm was blowing radioactive dust everywhere, despite all the efforts the liquidators had made so far. 

In Boris and Valery's case, this meant a different hotel in Pripyat than the one where they normally stayed, which meant all of their paperwork and notes were out of reach. To make matters worse, the room they were holed up in had no TV, no radio, no books or magazines. Essentially, there was nothing for Valery to do to distract him from his frustration. And like reactor #4, his temper was about to go critical. 

_It isn't fair! All the work we've done, all the lives lost, and one freak storm comes along and threatens us all! I've walked openly into an open reactor...isn't that enough? And Boris...coughing more and more everyday! Where is the justice in that? Is Chernobyl trying to kill us twice over?_

Boris approached his friend with a level of gentleness he normally didn't feel the need to show with his beloved. He thought to make a joke to cheer Valery. Often laughter was their only reprieve.

"Valera, do I need to press your AZ-5 button?" His eyes twinkled at Valery, but he was not met with a like response.

"Oh that's just great, Boris! Press the SCRAM button, and I'll go off like Chernobyl did! Real funny!" Valery was nearly in tears. It wasn't Boris' fault that he was so angry. It wasn't Boris' fault that he loved Valery enough to face him in all his radioactivity.

_I'm so sorry, Boris! It's not you! Please understand, and please keep trying!_

And Boris, that indomitable apparatchik who had faced down Party members and KGB agents when necessary, could do no less for the man he cared about more than anything in the world.

He searched the room, hoping for something they could both engage in, some "boron and sand" to put out Valery's fire. Finally, in the back of one of the closets, he found an old abandoned Scrabble board, left behind by some visitor who knows how long before. It wasn't much, but it was all there was.

Once again, he braved Valery's anger, walking up with the game in hand. Valery's curiosity got the better of him and he squinted at the box.

"Whatever is that, Boris?"

"Did you ever play Scrabble, Valery?"

"Maybe once or twice, I don't know when it was." _Yes, he did, too. Vague memories returned of university days when he had actually had friends and they enjoyed competing intellectually. And now his only friend was offering him the same camaraderie_ _._

"So, would you like to play?" And Boris leaned in to whisper in Valery's ear, "The loser will pleasure the winner however they would like!"

Valery blushed deep red, a smile breaking out despite his poor temper. Boris always knew the right thing to say to get him aroused. He nodded eagerly and Boris proceeded to clear off the table.

\-------------------

They divvied up the first set of letters and Boris indicated that Valery should go first. It didn't take long before Valery had triumphantly played all seven of his letters: N-E-U-T-R-O-N.

"And if I remember correctly, that's fifty bonus points!" he crowed.

Boris laughed and looked at his choices. Ah! Playing off of the "u" in neutron, he spelled B-U-L-L-E-T.

Valery smiled shyly. "You know, Borja, that's when I first started loving you!"

"What? Right after I'd threatened to throw you off the helicopter?"

Valery laughed. "I know it sounds crazy, Boris, but you showed me you had been listening to me in that meeting, even if no one else had."

"Well, Valery, I'd have to say, that's probably when I started loving you too." At Valery's arched eyebrow, Boris continued. "You see, the other committee members always treated me like I was inferior. Sure, I did well with coal and oil and concrete, but I was beneath all of them. And I'm Ukrainian, which made them look down on me all the more. But you, you impossible man! Despite my threats, you treated me as someone intelligent..."

"Which you are!" Valery protested.

"Yes, but not to your level, Valera. But you taught me what I needed to know, and you didn't talk down to me. And you have no idea how that made me feel." Reaching across the board, he took Valery's face in his hands and kissed him tenderly, sensuously. "You make me feel important, Valera, like no one else ever has."

Valery looked down at his letters, trying to hide the tears threatening to flow down his cheeks. Finally composed, he played, G-R-A-P-H-I-T-E off of Boris' "r".

Summoning his raspiest voice, Boris demanded, "Why do I see graphite on the board? Graphite is only found in the core where it is used as the neutron flux!"

Valery laughed happily. "And that is when you had me completely, heart and soul, Boris. You didn't even know if I was right yet, but you stood up for me anyway."

It was Boris' turn to look studiously at his letters to hide the moisture in his eyes. 

\------------------

From there the game progressed, Valery generally doing better, but Boris gradually catching up. And the more words they played, ("rover", "smile", "lunar", etc.), the more they were each reminded of their love for each other.

Boris excelled at squeezing in two letter words on the tight board, driving Valery up the wall. "Boris, play some real words! Not all these little two-letter ones!"

"Words are words, Valery. You use academician words, I use apparatchik words. Time will tell who will prevail."

Then Boris switched tactics. He began using other methods to distract Valery: removing his jacket, then his tie, then his suspenders. Valery's words got shorter and shorter, and the score differential continued to decrease.

At one point, Valery accused Boris of cheating, when Boris' rolled up sleeves shorted out his brain temporarily.

"What? I'm just getting ready for later so we won't waste time!" A wolfish leer crossed Boris' face.

"Still...I was winning by much more earlier in the game, so you're..."

Valery had no time to finish his sentence or react before one silver-haired Ukrainian wolf pounced on him, wrestling him to the floor.

"Accuse me of cheating, will you?" Boris growled, while playfully pinning Valery to the ground. When Valery laughingly tried to get free, Boris began nibbling on his neck and earlobes. Valery, both aroused and filled with a sudden desperate silliness, giggled hopelessly while Boris licked, nibbled and kissed him.

"I'm in charge here!", the wolf snarled, then went back to ravaging his prey until Valery surrendered entirely. Only then did Boris help him back up on to the couch, where the two of them sat panting rapidly for a few minutes.

"Shall we continue?" Boris said, having finally stopped breathing heavily. _I really should wrestle with this man more often!_

At Valery's nod, they resumed the game, now only wanting to finish it so the real game could begin.

Finally the last few letters had been distributed. Boris had two letters left, an "e" and an "x". Valery had three. The score was so close that if Boris played all his letters on his last turn, and Valery couldn't do the same, Boris would win.

And it wasn't looking good for Valery. An "e", an "s", and a "y". What was he going to make with that? And the board was so tight that there was really not going to be any place to play a word after Boris' turn.

Boris smiled triumphantly. Using the "s" of Valery's last word, he played his letters. S-E-X. And looked at Valery with a querying eyebrow. Valery nodded eagerly, but he wasn't quite done. 

Aha! Looking pointedly at Boris, he played his "y" at the end of "sex", then looked at Boris pointedly. Then he used his last two letters to make the word "yes".

Boris roared and threw Valery over his shoulder, carrying a laughing, protesting Valery into the bedroom.

"But wait! I won!"

"And you're telling me this isn't what you want?" Boris snarled like a hungry bear.

Valery could only smile in surrender as Boris deposited him on the bed. It was. after all, exactly what he wanted.

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you not familiar with Scrabble, the players make words on a board using letters they have blindly selected, crisscrossing their words with what their opponent has played before. You can add one of your letters to the end of an already existing word, making a new word, and then building down from there. That yields points both for the now altered original word and the new one. Thus, the last move would have looked like so...
> 
> SEX Y  
> E (played directly below the "Y")  
> S (played below the "E")
> 
> (Ao3 won't allow me to format this the way I want, so I hope that makes sense.)
> 
> Boris scored points for "sex", but then Valery got more points for making not only "yes", but the newly created "sexy."


End file.
